26 June 2006

kalb video blog permalinkcharles frederick smith is the president of the alexandria, louisiana city council and is an announced candidate for mayor of alexandria. the election is this fall. today councilman smith gave an interview to kalb.com in the form of one of their video blogs. click the link or the permalink to view it. if you like you can also leave your comment right there on the video blog.

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added 8:12 pm cdt tuesday 27 june 2006last night we watched councilman smiths video blog twice - we noted his mentioning that the heh heh heh ethics board had reversed their original opinion denying magnolia peace officers association receiving gaeda funding. we werent able to look for the ruling last night but found it earlier today and posted the link over at cenla antics blog. or, click here for that link. btw its docket no. 2006-279b.

the video opens with michele godard thanking us for joining them there on kalb.com and she mentioned that at the end of the vid we could leave a comment which we did last night. also in case you're the curious type, yes, you can leave your comment while the vid is playing (click the permalink up there and the comments section will already be open)

after introducing councilman smith ms godard dives right in asking him why are you running for mayor? "the experience and the leadership" he replies then councilman smith mentions how he has been on the alexandria city council for eighteen years and president for seven. he claims that hes "united this city" hmm ok and he says he "knows the issues and can face the issues" he says he was there back at england airforce base closing and was at the table negotiating for example star tek, union tank car, tri steele and "all these companies that we've brought forth." he says that right now the most important part of tying it all to together is the extension of versailles blvd. and hwy 28 west.

alexandria has a $166 (132mEUR}million dollar budget, councilman smith says "you cannot turn the city aloose to someone whos not experienced in government right now" michele godard said "that means you would be the ceo of a corporation with 166 million dollars what qualificatilons do you have to run such a large corporation?" he replied "as i said ive been there eighteen years ive been in government since '74 ive been there eighteen years, seven times president of the council this is a strong council mayor form of government so that means that you deal with issues and you deal with money when we had to deal with like union tank i was there at the table"

whats interesting is that when ms godard questioned councilman smith about his rumored inside deal at the holiday inn he sluffed that off as something about a "conflict of interest" with the provosty law firm. (the provosty law firm is one of the citys law firms and the law firm that the town talk reported that couldnt even locate the alexandria housing authority charter lol ) also he claimed that he never seen the lease.

when asked about the magnolia state peace officer deal (read caper) he explained it all away as "mr. robert thompson" applied for the money and the ethics board thought that he (smith) was salaried by magnolia state peace officers association (smith is the president of the non profit corporation) but when they found out that he wasnt receiving a salary from them they ok'd it.

now this shows you how sorry the la state heh heh heh ethics board is: the magnolia state peace officers is a fraternal organization councilman smith is the president of it and the president of the alexandria city council the city of alexandria formed the greater alexandria economic development authority or GAEDA. magnolia state peace officers association just a few days ago held their state meeting here in alexandria and gaeda paid for it. how exactly is this ethical or legal? you see what we are getting at? can just any fraternal organization or nonprofit corporation receive taxpayer money from gaeda? why do we need another taxing authority stealing what little bit of money we have by way of taxation to pay for political bigshots and their posse's big party? see this is the kind of leadership you get when you let a human being wallow in the taxpayer trough for 18 years. sooner than that for a lot of politicians. its graft and corruption right out there in the open in our faces, they think they are entitled to it, theres no remorse, no shame and they think we are too stupid to see it and if we do see it too powerless to do anything about it.